Wednesday, September 29, 2010

FFWD: Gougeres

Were these gougeres amazing?? Oui, Oui!! Oui is about the about the extent of what I can recall of the 1/2 year of french I took in the 7th grade. That, and I can still count to 10 - I don't think that will get me far in France. While I don't have the time to learn a language right now - learning to cook some french food I can make time for!

I have very little experience cooking or baking french foods, and I'm excited to cooking through Around My French Table (AMFT), which will undoubtedly broaden my palate and skills in the kitchen.

Dorie Greenspan herself chose the first round of recipes for the month of October. These gougeres were her first pick, and coincidentally the first recipe in the book. In my opinion, these are a perfect start to any french meal. I'm glad she included a tip about freezing the dough for future use - now I have a bevy of these babies in the freezer to serve with my future french recipes out of AFMT (Thanks Dorie!)!

Dorie wrote that she uses gruyere while in France, and cheddar while here in America. I never turn down the chance to cook with (thus eat) gruyere - I love the stuff - so I chose to make these perfect little puffed up cheese pastries with gruyere. Wait, are they pastries?? Well, they certainly are not breads - right? We'll call them pastries. I served them alongside two other October selections for dinner this past weekend, Hachis Parmentier, and Marie-Helene's Apple Cake, which made for a memorable meal - the best I've made in a while. Keep your eyes open for these posts soon - I'm dying to tell you about the Hachis Parmentier. Amazing.

Glad to read that you liked the Hachis P. My son told me a couple of months ago that he liked Shepard's Pie (which I've never made) so now I plan to make this for him when he comes home from college for a visit next week!

Kate (and/or anyone else!:)), I have a question about the Hachis Parmentier...what kind of sausage did you use? The recipe says sweet or spicy and the seasonings are pretty basic for the rest of the recipe so what kind of sausage would be good? I make Italian sausages & peppers on a very regular basis so I'd like to use something other than Italians but I am not good at figuring out flavors (which is why I like RECIPES! :).

I used a spicy italian - kind of crazy in a french dish, right? - but it was either that, sweet italian, or hot turkey sausage. That is all my local grocer had for raw sausage. It was great with the hot italian, though.

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About Me

I'm a 20-something (not for long!!!) new englander, wife, mother, and professional trying to flourish in each aspects of my life. This blog is my life through food - living, learning and loving it all.